The 24 SciFi Actor Filmfest.

Mister Americano finally got around to watching this week's two-episode showing of 24. It was sad to see Edgar go. He was such a vulnerable guy working in a high-risk occupation. It's sadder to see somebody like him die than it would be to see a field agent go. They get paid the bucks to take the risks that Edgar didn't.

An online article said Edgar's being killed off showed that anything can happen on 24. Presumably next week Jack Bauer, who really does take all the risks and who barely avoids death every week will die soon. Right, that'll happen for sure. Then again, maybe not everything is possible on the show.

This week's episodes were a big improvement. The producers are really pushing the incompetence of the President to the maximum. And now that he's got his equally incompetent and equally weird Vice-President by his side, we can look forward to even more stupid decisions coming from the Western White House. Watching the two of them plan emergency operations was like watching a couple of kids playing army. Scary and weird.

But the best thing about the show now is that it is littered with actors from favorite scifi and horror movies.

There's Ray Wise, as the Vice-President, who was great as the possessed and tormented serial killer in Twin Peaks and who played a thug in Robocop.

Next is Peter Weller, Robocop himself, who also played Buckaroo Banzai in fabulously oddball movie The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the Eighth Dimension.

Sean Astin is in the mix too, the great and loyal hobbit from the LOTR trilogy. Astin deserved an award for his work in that series.

The most recent addition is the one and only C. Thomas Howell, star of countless straight to video scifi movies, and also star of the best War of the Worlds movie made last year. Speilberg's version with Tom Cruise was crap. Just plain crap lacking any justification for its having been made. The version with Howell, however, is worthy and Howell is a much better lead than Cruise ever could hope to be. It's called H.G. Wells' War of the Worlds. Check out its IMDB webpage here.

And finally, there's Jack Bauer himself. Keifer Sutherland has appeared in science fiction, notably Dark City, where he busted out with an odd Peter Lorre-like portrayal of a scientist forced to work for aliens experimenting on humans.

The casting honchos on 24 deserve a big round of thank-yous for putting these actors together.

-tdr

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